Finding Uncle Fred

     One of the stories that Vern's mother used to tell was about her brother, Fred.  Clara was the youngest in her family and very spoiled - ...but that's another story - and especially by  Fred.  She adored  him.  He was 17 years older than her.   There was a falling out  of some kind between Fred and Clara's oldest sister, Anna and Fred left home never to be heard from again.  Anna as the oldest,  and even though she had a beau, was told by the parents it was her responsibility not to marry but stay home and keep house for them.  Clara was devastated when Fred left and she often said she wished that she could find him.  Somehow they had gotten word that he had homesteaded in Billings, Montana.
  When Anna was older and came to live in southern Missouri in the early 1960s, Clara and another sister, Mamie were getting ready to sell the family home in Kansas City and came across two letters that Fred had written to Clara but Anna had hidden them from her.  Clara went ballistic - many times -  and poor Aunt Annie, slightly senile at this time, caught the brunt of her anger.
      A couple of months ago, I got rummaging around on Ancestry.com  and checking records that they had, located Alfred Julius Beeker - Uncle Fred.  From census records and his WW1 draft card, he had lived in Yellowstone, Seattle, Spokane and finally in Wenatchee Washington.  I got the following information from the Wenatchee Genealogical Society from the Wenatchee Daily World, February 16,1942:
                                                  :               ALFRED BEEKER
                              Mr. Alfred J. Beeker, 59, died at his home, 1102 So. Columbia St.
                              early this morning.   Mr. and Mrs. Beeker attended church services
                              Monday night and he apparently was in good health.  His sudden
                              death came as a shock to his family and friends.
                              Born in Kansas City, Mo., March 4,1882, he spent his early life
                              there and later learned the plumbing trade.  Later, he moved to the
                              Pacific coast and spent several years in Washington, Oregon and
                              California.  He has resided in Wenatchee since 1936.  On Dec. 20,
                              1941, he was married to Miss Ramoth Phipps in Wenatchee.  He
                              was a member of the Christian Missionary Alliance church.
                              Surviving is his widow of Wenatchee.  Services will be announced 
                              by the Hennesy mortuary.

      In another small blurb it says that services were held at his church and burial in the Wenatchee cemetery.
   
      My first thought when finding this information was how much Vern would have enjoyed  knowing about Uncle Fred and then I remembered that where he is, he probably already knows and has enjoyed a great reunion with this uncle so beloved by his mother.  Finding Uncle Fred makes me think of the broadcaster, Paul Harvey who always said: "and now for the rest of the story".  Getting married at age 59 and dying a little more that two months later?  I'd love to know "the rest of that story"!!